The heart is a unique organ which pumps blood not only to the remaining portions of the body, but to itself. “Heart attacks” or myocardial infarctions occur when there is a loss of proper blood flow to the heart. When heart tissue does not get adequate oxygen, there is a high probability that heart muscle cells will die. The severity of a heart attack is measured by the amount and severity of heart damage.
Heart disease is a leading cause of death. Despite advances in the treatment of heart attacks, patients suffer decreased quality of life due to the damage caused by the heart attack. One such damage is chronic heart failure arising from the heart attack. The cardiac muscle cells, cardiomyocytes, which, in some circumstances, die during a heart attack either cannot be regenerated naturally by the heart or cannot be regenerated in sufficient quantities to repair the damage following a heart attack. Depending on the severity of damage to the heart muscle, cardiac output, heart value function, and blood pressure generating capacity can be greatly reduced. These results only exemplify some of the long-term devastating impacts of heart attacks on patients.
One way to treat damaged heart muscle cells is to provide pharmaceutical therapies in an effort to restore heart function. Such therapies may not be particularly effective if the damage to the heart is too severe, and pharmaceutical therapy is not believed to regenerate cardiomyocytes, but instead acts to block or promote certain molecular pathways that are thought to be associated with the progression of heart disease to heart failure.
Another treatment for damaged heart muscle cells is called “cell therapy.” Cell therapy involves the administration of endogenous, autologous and/or or nonautologous cells to a patient. For example, myogenic cells can be injected into damaged cardiac tissue with the intent of replacing damaged heart muscle or improving the mechanical properties of the damaged region. However, the administration of myogenic cells does not ensure that the cells will engraft or survive, much less function and there is a need in the art for enhanced efficacy of cell therapies.